Tag Archives: Dwight D. Eisenhower

And from the ashes of the Cold War, Confessions of a Cold War Veteran rises

Delay cadence/Count cadence/Delay cadence/Count!

One!…

I confess, dear Civilian, I am not a Catholic nor am I an active war veteran, rather I am a veteran of the Cold War, not to mention a narcissist. Regarding the latter, why else would I create my own blog, the fifth to date? If I weren’t narcissistic, I wouldn’t be able to convince myself that there is some niche of readers floating in Cyberland who gives a damn about me and what I have to say or what thoughts are trip-wired in my brain, especially when the primary subject is Me.

Hey everyone, look at me! Over here, look at me…!

Or maybe the niche I have created is a mere figment of my imagination that consists of an audience of one? In that case, please do excuse me, dear Civilian, if at times you catch me talking to myself; the theory being that if you cannot hold a conversation with yourself, the notion of carrying on a conversation with fellow members of your species is futile. At least that’s what Therapist Bob tells me. Speaking of whom, it was Therapist Bob, my psychological and spiritual and financial adviser, who recommended that I start yet another blog as a means of publicly purging my experiences while actively serving in the Army during the tail-end of the Cold War during the late ‘80s — thus tearing down the wall erected between the right and left sides of my brain.

Moreover, based on Therapist Bob’s recommendations, Confessions of a Cold War Veteran will provide me with a safe, nuclear-free space to share my insights as a Cold War Veteran on contemporary issues, military and otherwise.

Hence, a blog was born: Confessions of a Cold War Veteran.

Between you and me, dear Civilian, I think the ulterior motives underscoring Therapist Bob’s suggestions are that I can someday scoop these confessional musings up and sell them to some desperate publisher searching for the next “Catch-22,” so I can finally pay Therapist Bob for the backlog of services rendered on my behalf.

It’s true that I served in the Army during the “salad days” of the Cold War, most of my two-years of active duty planted in Dexheim, Germany – about a tank-of-gas away from the East German border – where I spent most of my on-the-clock time waiting, waiting for the Cold War to get hot again.

Like all my comrades, Uncle Sam, for reasons of emotional detachment, had quickly reduced my identity to the last four digits of my social security number: Two-Zero-Two-Zero. To help simply matters, the military halved my identity into two numbers: Twenty-Twenty. No, dear Civilian, I did not make this up to symbolize that I was some sort of visionary or Cold War prophet, who had been blessed — or cursed as is the case of most prophets whose life expectancy rates hover in the early thirties. If anything, since I crawled out of the womb wearing corrective lenses for farsightedness, Twenty-Twenty is one of those ironic nicknames like President Ronald “The Great MisCommunicator” Reagan inherited.

While in second grade an optometrist prescribed me lenses that resembled the bottoms of 1970s Coca-Cola bottles. Blessed with hindsight, I’m now convinced that optometrists are nothing more than snake-oil salesmen who sell a lifetime of corrective lenses and frames that are discontinued by manufacturers every nine months. But this is nothing compared to the racket the Military Industrial Complex (MIC) has been running since the Cold War was unofficially declared in the 1950s. Despite President Eisenhower’s final televised Address to the Nation in 1961 when he raised concerns about the Cold War and who makes bank on a weapons build-up, warning us that “…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex…”

And remember: We Like Ike!

But we don’t like prophets. Today, the “Masters of War” (coined by Bob Dylan in song) consumes nearly half of the government’s budget each year – not including expenditures spent on the latest perpetual, metaphorical war: “The War on Terror.”

Although I did serve in the longest war, literal or figurative, in U.S. history, I must confess, dear Civilian, that I am not a proud Cold War Veteran, nor do I run around boasting about my service as if I deserve some sort of entitlement. Every once in a while, however, I do play the Veteran Card, whether it’s saving $75 a year on my property taxes or calling out some political-hawk clamoring for more war — who not only has never served in the military and is unwilling to put his own precious bodily fluids on the line as well, let alone sacrifice one of his family member’s blood for the greater good.

But who am I to judge, eh?

I confess, dear Civilian, because I am not Catholic, nor do I believe that the confessionals about to unfold on this Theatre of War Metaphors will purge me of any sins, nor will they whitewash my conscience and soul of any moral wrongdoings.

Without further adieu I present to you, dear Civilian: Confessions of a Cold War Veteran…